Arrow's Stephen Amell Plans To Square Off In WWE Summerslam

Update: It didn't take long for Arrow star Stephen Amell to shoot these rumors down, although he does so in a way that feels more like trash talk than a firm "no way." That said, the WWE would probably be promoting this big time if it were real. So we'll just cross our finger-arrows until SummerSlam gets here.

Lots of rumors circulating that I'm fighting @StardustWWE at Summerslam. Not true. Cody wants no piece of me.

The WWE loves to bring “mainstream” attention to themselves by working with actors, athletes, and other artists. Most of the time the celebrities stay out of the ring, or have very limited physical interactions. Every once in a while however, they actually get in the ring for a match with a major superstar. Stephen Amell of The CW's Arrow is the most recent Hollywood celebrity to get involved in WWE storylines and the rumor is that he may be going one-on-one with a WWE superstar at August's Summerslam event.

Amell has been a lifelong fan of professional wrestling and has been lobbying for a guest host spot with the WWE since last September:

Hey @WWE -- How do I score a Raw hosting gig? I'll wrestle and everything.
#AmellGetsRaw

He finally made an appearance on last Monday’s episode of WWE RAW and had a face-to-face encounter with Stardust, aka Cody Rhodes (or is that the other way around?). Now Hollywood Life is reporting that not only was this the beginning of a program between the two, but that Amell is actually going to wrestle Stardust, potentially as his character from CW’s Arrow.

You see, Stardust as a character is having a bit of an identity crisis himself and he doesn’t see things particularly clearly. As you can see from this post Raw interview with Stardust, he seems to be under the impression that Amell is only pretending to be a Canadian actor, and he is, in fact, actually the hooded vigilante from his show. Cody Rhodes, the son of WWE Hall of Fame member, “The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes, wrestled most of his career under his own name before transforming into the character of Stardust last June.

The history of celebrities interacting with WWE goes back a long way. At Wrestlemania I the main event included guest time keeper Liberace and Muhammad Ali was the special guest referee. Most of the time when celebrities get involved in matches, they’re part of tag teams, so they don’t have carry the entire match on their own, or their athletes from other spheres, like Floyd Mayweather or Lawrence Taylor. If Amell does take on Stardust one on one it will be a fairly unprecedented moment. Having said that, Amell had to get into good physical shape for Arrow so he may have an advantage. It's unknown if Stardust can pull off the salmon ladder Amell seems ready to get in the ring.

Time for a break. Features to film. Wrestling moves to learn. Revenge to be had. Kiddos to be cuddled.

As over the top as taking the ring as The Arrow would be, this is WWE we’re talking about. They’ve never been able to completely get away from at least some of their superstars being cartoon characters. For that reason a Stardust vs. Arrow match would be perfect as both men have alter egos. The promo writes itself. “I will accept your challenge at Summerslam Stardust, but to defeat you I must become someone else, I must become something else.